Bitcoin

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What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is an experimental new digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is also the name of the open source software which enables the use of this currency. The abbreviation for Bitcoin is BTC. The smallest denomination which is currently 0.00000001 BTC is called a Satoshi, which is named after the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin has no official central bank. Each Bitcoin Wallet is essentially a central bank of it's' own able to transfer BItcoins to any other wallet on the network. All Bitcoins are transferred through a unique Bitcoin Address generated within your wallet. It is recommended to create a new Address for each transaction, or at least for each account you are transacting with. A label can be added to each Bitcoin Address, which makes it easy to identify where the transaction came from, otherwise, it's very difficult to identify transactions. All Bitcoins are stored in a Bitcoin Wallet, which can be an appplication on your computer, smartphone, tablet, or even a 3rd-party hosted wallet service such as Coinbase. There are several other major online Bitcoin Wallets, or E-wallets, that are available right now. We list them below with other helpful Bitcoin websites.

There is even someone selling physical Bitcoins called Casascius, which are equal to their amount in digital Bitcoins, and can be redeemed to your wallet.